Harry Potter and the Temporal Eight
by Smokythebear
Summary: Harry tries to send something back in time and ends up sent back himself with his friends. Now he has a second chance to stop everything that's coming, to save all of the people he couldn't save before and maybe have some fun in the process. Criticism, reviews, the like are appreciated. I will try to keep characters in character! T because I'm paranoid.
1. Prologue

Prologue  
 **A/N - Okay, guys, so I'm going to ignore the "nineteen years later" thing and just write this as if it never happened. Sorry if I suck at writing this, by the way – I haven't written anything in forever. Tips and brit-picking are greatly appreciated! Nagging me to write is also appreciated!**  
Nobody had expected for peace to last for such a short time. Surely, since The Boy Who Lived – Harry Potter – had defeated Voldemort, peace would come about for at least a half a century. The greatest dark lord to arise in centuries had been defeated and his forces killed or captured. Sadly, Tom Marvolo Riddle – or what little left of him existed – had been vanquished. He was dead, very dead, and in his wake he left a recuperating nation and a massive opening for dark wizards. There would always be someone seeking to gain power, to hurt others, and thus from the ashes rose a new power, nearly as great as the last. Few knew her name, for she worked from the shadows. All that the wizards of Britain and their surrounding countries knew was that people were dying, obviously murdered, and nobody knew who was doing it. That's why the attack on Harry Potter's twenty-first birthday was a massacre, as well as a massive blind-siding.  
And so began a new age of terror, but this time Harry and his remaining friends had a plan. A reckless plan, of course, but definitely a plan. Harry planned to do the impossible, to go where no wizard had gone before. He, and the rest, planned upon sending an entire box full of notes on what was going to happen, why, and how to stop it. _Surely,_ nothing could go wrong with such a dangerous and potentially universe-destroying (I mean, this could cause a paradox. That stuff can be pretty dangerous.) spell that would send a box flying through time to the first day of Hogwarts, directly on Dumbledore's perfectly cooked steak, courtesy of the house-elves.  
Not long after this, the new dark lord came out of the shadows - a woman by the name of lord Yanstra. She idolized Voldemort in many ways, and shared traits with him as well. Despite her almost comical idolization of Tom, and her odd name, she was nothing to laugh about. With her dark and more cult-like following than that of Voldemort's, she killed many people, not in any small part due to the instant complacency of the Wizarding world following Voldemort's fall from power in the castle of Hogwarts.  
And so we begin in a circular room, shaped in a most peculiar form to concentrate magic. This room had been built long ago, near the castle of Hogwarts, to focus the strength of the powers of the greatest wizards of that millennium – Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepluff, Godric Gryffindor, and Salazar Slytherin. The founders of Hogwarts did great things in that chamber, but they never did anything quite as extraordinary as what Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, George, Luna, Neville, Seamus, and Dean were about to do. Seamus and Dean hadn't been expected to join the group, but since they had been in Harry's year with Ron and Neville, they were allowed to join them in casting the immensely draining spell.  
The rest of the old DA and the few remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix waited outside the entrance to the hidden chamber, defending the casters of the spell as they cast the spell that would alter time itself. They knew that this time, there was no winning. Yanstra had no fatal weakness to anyone, and she had horcruxes of her own. Nobody knew how many, but it was certain that she had at least two. This war they could not win, especially not with the devastating blow that started off the war. If this didn't succeed, a large amount of Europe would be taken by Yanstra, and from there she would only grow in strength.  
Harry sat down with his head in his hands, looking up to see Hermione begin to trace the lines on the floor with her wand leaving glowing trails where it touched, all the while muttering calculations to herself. What she was doing involved incredibly complex arithmancy, and one small mistake could result in all of them blowing up, being turned into trees, or the box not being sent back in time correctly. Harry glanced over at the small brown parcel, wrapped like a present. But he knew that it carried one of the few hopes left for Wizard kind, packed to the brim with knowledge on the future and what was coming. Ginny took a seat next to him and gave him a kiss, giving him a reassuring look. She had a knack for telling his emotions, and right now he was pretty worried they'd fail.  
Harry weakly tried to smile at her, but the smile came out as more of a grimace. He glanced over at Hermione, who had almost finished the complex pattern and was now drawing runes at strategic intervals throughout the circle. Ron paced the room while Seamus and Dean muttered nervously together, and Luna was reassuring Neville that everything was going to go okay, and there was no chance Wrackspurts could mess this up. Neville looked hardly relieved, but did seem to perk up a bit. Hermione finished drawing the circle and straightened up.  
"It's time," she said grimly. The group exchanged terrified looks as Hermione set the parcel in the middle of the circle, but stood up and each occupied a circle surrounded by the glowing blue lines and runes, raising their wands and beginning to say their complex incantation while following incredibly complex wand motions. Harry tapped deeply into his own magic reserves, and he could feel himself starting to burn a little. This spell took almost all of the magic that the group had put together, but as they chanted, Harry could see the air beginning to ripple near the box, turning a bruised shade of purple and wriggling in a knot. The very fabric of space tore open, and through the hole each could see flickers of color, images from the past.  
That's where things went wrong. From outside, a large explosion could be heard and the room shook, nearly destabilizing the rift. If such a thing were to happen, the rift could potentially annihilate the entire room, or even grow uncontrollably and possible annihilate the entire solar system. Playing with time was a very dangerous thing to do. Sounds of a fight drifted through the door into the room, and another explosion made dust rain down from the ceiling. Whoever was causing those explosions was likely to bring the whole room down around them if they kept exploding things. The fighting escalated and a sudden, significantly larger _boom_ shook the casters like a decently strong earthquake. Neville's wand gave a sudden jerk due to the shaking and the rift destabilized. Then an earsplitting _crack_ resounded around the room as part of the roof collapsed and the room exploded, throwing Harry through the air, and then everything went black.

 **A/N I did not _plan_ on adding a post-prologue note but this is just to thank a guest for pointing out some weird code issues! For some reason or another, when I added the newest chapter FF decided to add some weird code strings and break the formatting. I'll try to keep on top of this! :)  
**


	2. We're back!

Chapter 1: We're back!

 **A/N Boy oh boy, I've returned! I know this is an excessively short work, from like a billion perspectives, and it's likely to be bad, but I decided I might as well publish their returns. I'm not currently sure where to go from here, so I'll likely do a lone chapter with Harry a few days after waking up, in which he'll do something interesting things (!), but I'm not planning on including any other characters. Following that, I'll do a few random perspectives for the train ride, and then Hogwarts has arrived. I'm still in the process of figuring out when they should discover each other's pre-existing knowledge (Any advice is considered!) but I really felt like you guys needed proof I'm alive and working. Truth be told, I've had this finished since the week following the original uploading of the story, but I'd planned on doing multiple things that didn't ever happen.**

 **So here's to me finally getting the ball rolling! I'm hoping on at least four chapters or 16k words by the end of the year. Who's with me? :) One final thing - no more dilly dallying - I'm considering expanding these segments later on, when I can figure out what I want to do with them, but for now I'm just curious as to who you guys want me to expand on the most.**

Ginny awoke with a start and gasped not even a moment later. These surroundings were familiar to her. She hadn't been in the Burrow in years. She was back in the room she had grown up living in back before the Burrow had been razed to the ground. She sat up, blinking rapidly in the burning sunlight, and placed her hands behind her for support. Pulling herself into a cross-legged position, she began to think. She remembered the spell the others had been casting.

 _Yanstra knew. I guess the rift went out of control, sending more than we had bargained for back in time,_ Ginny's thoughts wandered, _but was it just me? I've gotta be careful until I know more._ She sat in her bed for a few more moments, before remembering that the entire reason they'd ever had to try such a risky magical procedure was currently sleeping upstairs, in a cage in her brother's room. Knowing this, she decided to make her first attempt at changing the future, hopefully for the better, and set out to do so. Sweeping her legs off the bed, she stood up, and changed into her day clothes.

Percy and her father were sitting down at the table, eating slices of toast and both reading a copy of the Daily Prophet, simultaneously sipping steaming hot cups of darkened, black coffee.

"Good morning, Ginny, dear, could you help me cook breakfast this morning? Merlin knows the boys and your father wouldn't know the first thing about cooking and I'm a bit strapped for time, I'm going out to get Percy some supplies for his fifth year soon and so I need this done soon." Mrs. Weasley said as she hurried around clattering pots and pans and slapping bacon down to cook.

"Sure, mum, I guess. What should I do?"

"Grab some sausage and put it on the stove, please, I'm making pancakes this morning."

Ginny obliged and the two women of the Weasley household cooked breakfast together, before the Weasley matriarch sent Ginny to wake up the rest of the boys and call them down for breakfast.

This gave Ginny a chance to get rid of Peter Pettigrew, after Ron had told her that Peter was the traitor behind Harry's parents' deaths, she'd wished she had killed him when she had the chance. She'd originally been planning on waking up the twins first, but an explosion from their room made it pretty clear that they were already awake and busy breaking things. Quietly, she ascended the flights of steps, making sure to avoid the creaky ones she still remembered, careful to make sure he wouldn't awaken – he was a late sleeper, so she might have a chance at getting Scabbers before Ron could wake up and ask what she was doing. Ginny approached the doorknob and listened closely to make sure he wasn't awake. Though she couldn't hear any snoring from the other side, she didn't hear him moving either. She reached for the doorknob, turning it slowly to make sure it wouldn't squeak, and turned it.

-OoOoOoO-

Ron sat up in bed, blinking his eyes to adjust to the light. Sound filtered up through the Burrow, as well as the unmistakable, glorious smell of frying bacon. He stared around his room – or, his old room that had been plastered with bright orange Chudley Cannons posters. _Bloody hell, I haven't seen this place in years. Am I dead?_ He looked around and focused on one thing – a fat, lethargic rat he remembered acutely from his third year. Acting on impulse, he pushed off of the bed – or at least tried to, getting tangled up in his Chudley Cannon bedspread before falling flat on his face – and, dusting himself off and rubbing his nose, strode straight over to Scabbers. He pulled the rat out of its cage and it woke dimly, lifting its head and sniffing around slowly.

Ron's doorknob squeaked and opened. Ginny took a step in, and their eyes met. For two full seconds, they stared at each other with uncanny expressions on their faces as she drew herself together.

"What're you doing? Haven't you ever heard of privacy, or knocking at the very least?" he snapped, breaking the pregnant silence.

"Err… mum wanted me to come tell you to get down for breakfast," Ginny said quickly. Ron got the impression that Ginny wasn't telling the full truth, hiding something. Surely she wouldn't have come into his room without knocking if all she needed to do was tell him to eat breakfast. Ron, with his first chance dashed, shoved Peter unceremoniously back into the rat's cage, shoved a morsel of food through the bars, and left the room, turning at the door and staring back at the animagus who'd killed his best mate's parents. _Next time, you bastard_ , Ron thought, and he exited to walk the many flights of stairs to where his favorite meal of the day was waiting.

-OoOoOoO-

Hermione awoke sleepily, the sun shining through her thin curtains onto her bed. Her eyes blinked slowly in the peace and quiet of her room, reminding her of what she had had before her witching life began. She realized that the reason she was so reminded of her old, peaceful albeit mildly friendless life was because she was currently lying down, in her bed, in her eleven year old body back in Crawley. The very thought of such a thing had her immediately sitting bolt upright in bed, and going through her checklist of things in dreams, patting herself down and focusing on her five senses.

She stared around at her light blue walls in the dim room, her blankets were soft and her bed seemed normal. Cool air moved through her nose as she breathed in the reassuring smell of her old home, while a gentle breeze floated through the room because of the roof mounted fan humming lightly while spinning slowly. She look at her hands, touched her face. This is most definitely not a dream, and if it is, it must be the most lucid dream I've ever had. Hermione thought, refusing to believe that she had truly gone back in time to her old body. How did this even happen? She thought, thinking back to the last things she remembered before waking up. They had been casting a spell to send back in time, hopefully to prevent Voldemort's return, and then the room had exploded and everything went black.

The now 11 year old girl considered that if she had been sent back in time, what happened to the others? Had they undergone the same teleportation as she had? Had only some of them been sent back in time? Her mind was racing, thinking of all the possibilities that had been opened to her now that she had been sent back, all the things she could change.

The door to her room opened, and her mother's face popped into her room. "Your father and I are leaving for work, honey, there's breakfast in the fridge and you can fix yourself anything if you need a snack later. I left a few books on the dining room table if you want to read them, and the kettle's still hot so you can make yourself some tea."

"Thanks, mum. I'll see you when you get home!" Hermione smiled, she was going to have so much fun changing things up this time around.

-OoOoOoO-

Luna sat up in bed serenely, looking around at her blank circular room. She noticed that her portrait of friends was missing, and deducted the obvious: she'd been sent back in time magically by the explosion that brought the rift out of control. Surely that was the only logical reason for her remembering so many years of schooling?

Xenophilius Lovegood poked his head through the trapdoor leading into her room and climbed up. "Luna, dear, it's time to get out of bed. We're starting our expedition today…" Luna's father said quietly. Luna frowned, remembering that she must be the year before her first year, and then realizing that she had lost her mother not too long ago. Her father still wasn't completely quite over it. That made her sad, remembering seeing her mum's spell backfire, seeing her father holding her mother as she died.

Her father climbed back down the ladder to start making breakfast, and Luna got out of her bed into the dusty room and stared out her large window down to the river. She decided to go fishing before they left on their expedition, to go over the fact that she'd returned to her old life and her new chance at restarting. Who knew what this new chance could hold?

Being her typical serene self, she wasn't perturbed in the slightest, Though her mother had died a year previously in this timeline, it had been many more since then in her own head. Getting dressed, she pulled herself together. She didn't want to worry her dad by acting differently from her usual self.

-OoOoOoO-

Neville jerked awake, as his grandmother rapped sharply on his door. "Neville! Up, out of bed. I've got a meeting with the ladies in an hour and you must make yourself presentable, like a gentleman. You will be serving tea, and afterwards you can tend the greenhouses but for now you can't be seen with dragon dung on your hands. In a couple of hours your potions tutor will be here as well, you should keep that in mind."

"Yes, grandmother, I'm coming." Neville said glumly. He remembered the explosion and all of his other memories, and he realized that he had had friends in his past life. This time around, he made sure to get those friends earlier. This time, he swore to himself, he'd not be such a pushover in his first two years.

Neville got out of his bed and walked through his library-like room into his closet, a rather large room in itself (bigger than even Harry's bedroom, Harry would have probably enjoyed living in Neville's closet for all of its comfortableness.), and organized based on style. On one side, to the left of the door, the Longbottom house-elves had organized his dress clothes in suits, dress robes, and other such clothes. On the far side of the room, facing the door, were his casual clothes, clothes still that were picked by his formidable grandmother. These were the clothes he usually wore in public when with the eldest Longbottom woman. To his right were the clothes his grandmother allowed him to pick for himself, his most comfortable robes and clothes that he could wear around the manor, when there weren't guests. He rarely got to wear them.

Neville dressed himself in dress robes and moved into his study-like room, tiled with wood and covered on one side to the roof with shelves filled with musty books and epics. A desk stood near his bed, covered with paper and with small smears of dirt where Neville had forgotten to wash his hands and occasionally touched the highly polished wood with his dirty hands. The house elves left it alone at Neville's request, and on one end of his room was a large window that went to the roof. It was currently letting in a large amount of sunlight, and below the sunlit area was the greenhouse door, leading straight from his bedroom to the greenhouses which held many rare and exciting plants along with some less exciting ones.

Neville left his room before his grandmother chewed him out for dilly dallying and took his place near the fireplace, waiting to welcome his guardian's friends to the house. He used his time standing there waiting to go over the events leading up to his… what could it be called? Wizards had never coined a term to describe the event he'd just been through. _I've gone back in time…_ Neville thought, _what would I call that? Temporal displacement? That'd be what Hermione would call it. Wait. What happened to them? Was I the only one sent back?_ Neville's face blanched at the thought of having to deal with the memories alone. _On the bright side,_ a little color returned to his face, _I can kick Malfoy's ass if he ever decides to mess with me._


	3. Diagon Alley pt1

Chapter two, Harry and Diagon Alley.

 **First thing to note - this is an unedited first draft. I'm trying to stay in character! Also, this is a universe where Harry and seven others have gone back in time to prevent a war following Voldemort's fall, and all have their memories. Changed my mind about editing this one because I feel so bad about not uploading - holidays and finals came first. Now that I've written this part, the second chapter with Harry shouldn't be so bad. After these two with Harry, what are your opinions? Multiple protagonists? Should Ginny visit Luna before the second year? Your words can affect the story more than you think!**

Snores rumbled from the two occupied Dursley bedrooms, but not from the cupboard beneath the stairs at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. A certain Harry James Potter sat, cramped in his tiny bed, waiting for the moment he could be sure his uncle Vernon was sound asleep - if he awoke at any time while Harry was up and about, he wouldn't leave his cupboard for a month. Vernon, though a heavy sleeper, could detect noises like no other - especially when it came to Harry. Finally, sure that even Vernon was fully asleep, he sat up slowly. Miraculously, the old bed didn't creak. _Unintentional magic,_ Harry thought, _is truly a wondrous thing._ Though Harry lacked a wand, any child with even a speck of magical blood often had their magic released in unusual ways - generally responding to their wants. For example, if a young wizard were held out of the window and dropped, they'd likely float down or bounce in order to not be injured - generally, a young wizard or witch could not control it, as it relied mostly on emotion. The Patronus charm and the Killing curse worked similarly - the Patronus must be cast when happy, or thinking of happy memories. The Killing curse relied on hatred.

As a result, though Harry was an adult in his head, he still didn't want to end up being caught by Vernon, and his fear was an asset in making sure it wouldn't happen. Standing up in the miniscule space between the door and the bed, Harry turned the doorknob carefully and opened it slowly, his eyes adapting to the darkness beyond his door. Stepping quietly, he tiptoed from the cupboard to the shoe closet, carefully grabbing his flats and slipping them on in the silence, before preparing to open the door - any number of things could go wrong, but luckily he didn't. Thirty seconds later, he was standing out in the crisp, dark night. From inside, Dudley's elephant snores began, and he began to walk down the darkened neighborhood road, alone in the dark, with only the sound of sprinklers and the moon above for company.

Finishing his walk to the park, he sat down at the edge of the road and swept his hair over his forehead to hide his iconic lightning scar. Harry raised his wand arm, and with a loud, disorienting bang, the Knight Bus flashed into view, pulling to a screeching halt unheard by any ears outside of the Bus except Harry's. The doors pulled themselves open, and a rather old man stepped off, glancing around before looking down at Harry. He gave a kindly smile, sweeping his conductor's hat off to reveal a balding head, and spoke.

"Quite late for a young lad like you to be out. You're not running away, are you?" His eyes twinkled good-naturedly, but he turned to let Harry in, "What's your name, kid?"

Harry paused before deciding on a name. "Colin. Colin Creevey. Nice to meet you!" Harry held out his hand to be shaken, appreciating this conductor much more than he had Stan. The conductor held out his hand, shaking it, and helped Harry get his short self up into the bus. Though Stan was still attending Hogwarts, Ernest still drove the bus - which, Harry noted, was a lot neater this time around.

"Where to? You got any money for the ride?" the conductor asked. Harry internally kicked himself for forgetting there was a fee for the bus. Of course there was!

"Just to the Leaky Cauldron, my mum and dad are out later than they said they'd be. They lose track of time easily, so they always tell me to just take the Knight Bus if they're out past the time they said they'd be. I guess I forgot to grab a few sickles, sorry." Harry lied.

"I know the bartender at the Leaky Cauldron, I'll just tell him to add it to your parents' tab and he'll give it to us next time he rides." The old conductor smiled, motioning for him to take a seat.

Harry nodded his appreciation, taking a seat and bracing himself for the force of acceleration. Taking one glance out the door, he noticed Mrs. Figg's light had turned on. That could spell trouble, Harry remembered she was supposed to keep an eye on him and even squibs could hear the Knight Bus arriving. However, he only got a glimpse before a bang and a heavy jolt brought them to London.

Stepping off the Knight Bus with weak legs, Harry approached the friendly dim light of the Leaky Cauldron, in between the darkened bookstore and music store that accompanied it. The bar's friendly light made the street seem safer. Passing through the door back into the undestroyed Wizarding world restored a part of Harry he'd never known he'd lost. When Diagon Alley had been destroyed by a truly horrific attack, Harry had been distraught. Seven wizards and witches had used their own wands to rip their magical cores from their bodies, disintegrating themselves in the process, and taking the whole alley with them. The crater was at least 50 meters in diameter, and Harry would never forget the scene from the still-smoking London side of the crater, where the once proud columns of the marble building stood cracked and in places melting.

Harry shook those thoughts from his head - he and the others had risked so much to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Though the bar was mostly empty, the bartender Tom was cleaning out a glass with a rag. Heading to the back, he realized he didn't have a wand to enter. Harry inwardly punched himself, then turned to Tom, who'd set down the cup and was now looking at Harry.

"Excuse me, sir, would you mind opening Diagon Alley for me? My mum and dad were supposed to come home tonight, but they drank too much Firewhiskey and need to stay the night at the inn just down the alleyway. They owled me, just a moment ago, and told me to come in. I guess the whiskey made them forget that I need a wand to get in." Harry said, convincingly.

Tom nodded, silently, and crossed the bar, pulling a battered wand out of his somewhat grimy apron pockets. Kneeling down, he placed his wand at the base of the wall, counted up three times, then to the right twice. Repeating this twice more, he stood up and watched as the wall began to crumble away, leaving a darkened and somewhat quiet Diagon Alley open to Harry's eyes to see.

Harry passed through the gateway, and as the wall crumbled behind him, he thanked Tom. _Back to the Wizarding world,_ Harry thought in a giddy state, _with a completely new chance._ With a new spring in his step, Harry began his walk down the alley towards the biggest, grandest building of the economic centerpiece of the wizarding world - the goblin bank, Gringotts. Proudly it stood, professional and regal in stature, with its polished white marble columns reflecting the light of the moon. While Gringotts grew towards him, or rather he towards it, Harry looked around at his surroundings. To his right was Madam Malkin's, down across the street was Ollivander's - which he planned to visit - and not far off was Flourish and Blotts. However, for now, the shopfronts were dark and the streets were empty. Gringotts, however, was conveniently open 24/7. As he climbed the stairs, the goblins flanking the door looked at him disinterestedly and allowed him to pass through the silver engraved doors - _Enter, stranger, but take heed…_

The last time he'd been through these doors, he'd most definitely not paid attention to those engravings - he. Ron. and Hermione had entered with the plan of stealing from one of the most deeply guarded vaults in the entire bank. With a little help from a Ukrainian Ironbelly, they'd even managed to escape - though scalded from the immense heat of the duplicates produced by the Gemino curse. This time around, he simply planned on making a deposit and grabbing the items needed for his first year. His wand, robes, books, quills, and ink were the most important, followed by a few other assorted tools for Potions class.

The immense marble hall was considerably more empty during the nighttime hours. Though the long counter was still occupied by maybe two dozen goblins on their high stools, doing their normal various jobs such as weighing coins and precious stones, there was a quieter air to the bank. Harry was reminded of a library. Harry strolled to a goblin who seemed to not be busy and spoke. "Sorry to come in so late, but may I make a withdrawal from my family's vault? I don't have a key that I know of, perhaps Albus Dumbledore is holding it until I come of age to inherit my family vault, but the goblins are a very intelligent and clever race. Surely you have other ways of identifying wizards and other beings who come into your magnificent building to make withdrawals of the gold they hold within your vaults?"

Harry tried to be as respectful as he could, but he couldn't remember goblin etiquette for the life of him. Thankfully, his attempt had done well. The goblin peered down at Harry from behind a pair of spectacles. "There are ways of identifying young sons and daughters who don't yet own a key to their family vault. It came in handy during the Wizarding war ten years ago, when far too often young wizards and witches would come in orphaned and needing their family's funds. Admittedly, many goblins opposed the idea of so freely giving back vaults to young magic users, but I have always been considered soft by the community. Would you mind giving me your name, and proof that you are truly part of the family you claim to be of?"

"My name is Harry Potter, and would the goblins by any chance ever have received note of my peculiarly shaped scar?" Though Harry didn't want to immediately go to his scar for identification, it was the best thing he could think of on short notice to identify himself by. The goblin nodded thoughtfully, before pulling himself off the stool and looking underneath the counter for something. Harry heard parchment rustle, and his goblin teller muttering, before finally he came back up with a sheet of parchment in hand.

"According to the parchment, that sounds like you. Before you sign this paper over for the key to your vault, mind if I do something a little strange? The name's Bordok, by the way." The goblin said amiably to Harry. Although confused by the goblin's friendly personality, Harry accepted whatever the goblin would do to him. Bordok pulled out a small vial, with a strange attachment at the front, and pressed at the top. Instantly, a small jet of liquid shot out and hit Harry. Where it hit, he felt a strange tingling, but then it evaporated. "That's a vial of water from the Thief's Downfall, a defense measure we have for the deeper vaults. Any and all enchantments are broken by its touch - from _Imperio_ to Polyjuice potion, it can counter just about anything." Harry remembered that those exact two had been broken when they'd broken into Gringotts. Signing the parchment, he noticed a red magic, not unlike fire, wrapping itself around his hand. _That looks oddly similar to the Unbreakable Vow… is it possible to transfer that into heavily binding written contracts?_ Harry thought curiously.

Taking the signed and faintly glowing parchment from Harry, Bordok disappeared to a room behind the counter temporarily, and returned holding a golden key with a weaved pattern handle. "Now that the contract has been signed, you should be perfectly capable of opening the vault. I checked for you, let me lead you to Vault 687." Walking to the end of the counter, Bordok motioned towards Harry to follow, before opening a door leading off of one side of the hall. Bordok held the door open for him, and then followed Harry into the narrow stone passageway with a cart already waiting. The torchlight flickered, and a warm draft blew up from one of the many passageways the rails led steeply down to. They climbed in, and without Bordok doing anything, even lifting a finger, the cart began to move with a mind of its own. Carrying them down the steepest passageway to the right, the cart began to pick up speed, and though the cold air stung Harry's eyes, he kept them open for the trip. After passing through a maze of passageways, they hurtled past an underground lake surrounded by stone protrusions, and shortly arrived at the small door Harry had withdrawn from many times before. Bordok unlocked the door, and as it opened a copious amount of emerald green smoke billowed out. Fanning the strange gas away from him, Harry grinned and Bordok fetched him a bag for holding his coins with. Though Harry hadn't originally planned to grab more than just enough for his yearly supplies, he couldn't resist grabbing just under twice as much - there was so much of Diagon Alley he hadn't explored. He could feel free to buy just about anything this time around, and so he found childlike joy returning to him.

Returning to the cart with a fatter, thicker, heavier jingly bulging bag of coins, Harry felt giddy. Reversing the original direction, Harry and the polite goblin traveled back through the maze, past the vast, echoing subterranean lake, and came to a grinding stop back where they had begun. Hopping out of the cart, Harry said his goodbyes and left, lugging a magically lightened yet still heavy bag of gold - enchanted so it could not leave Diagon Alley (if apparated out, it automatically returned to Gringotts). Little had changed, other than the moon's position in the night sky, and Harry noted the position of the Bear's Den Inn, the place he'd planned on staying the night at. Taking a final look at the beautiful navy sky perforated with dots of light, Harry made a promise to do things better this time.

"I'd like a room, please."


End file.
